Search for: All records

While physics is often promoted as being for everyone, its cultural narrative, i.e., what physicists do and who they are, has been and continues to be created by a dominant social group. As such, many students who come from marginalized backgrounds in physics are required to fit themselves into its narrow culture that does not reflect who they are and how they see the world. As physics educators, we have unconsciously internalized this narrow physics culture and need resources to help broaden our perceptions. To this end, we suggest some design principles for creating materials that help physics educators reflect on these issues and disrupt inequitable structures in their classrooms. We draw on the STEP UP project to exemplify how these design principles were implemented. 

Despite increasing demands for skilled workers within the technological domain, there is still a deficit in the number of graduates in computing fields (computer science, information technology, and computer engineering). Understanding the factors that contribute to students’ motivation and persistence is critical to helping educators, administrators, and industry professionals better focus efforts to improve academic outcomes and job placement. This article examines how experiences contribute to a student’s computing identity, which we define by their interest, recognition, sense of belonging, and competence/performance beliefs. In particular, we consider groups underrepresented in these disciplines, women and minoritized racial/ethnic groups (Black/African American and Hispanic/Latinx). To delve into these relationships, a survey of more than 1,600 students in computing fields was conducted at three metropolitan public universities in Florida. Regression was used to elucidate which experiences predict computing identity and how social identification (i.e., as female, Black/African American, and/or Hispanic/Latinx) may interact with these experiences. Our results suggest that several types of experiences positively predict a student’s computing identity, such as mentoring others, having a job, or having friends in computing. Moreover, certain experiences have a different effect on computing identity for female and Hispanic/Latinx students. More specifically, receiving academic advice from teaching assistants was more positive for female students, receiving advice from industry professionals was more negative for Hispanic/Latinx students, and receiving help on classwork from students in their class was more positive for Hispanic/Latinx students. Other experiences, while having the same effect on computing identity across students, were experienced at significantly different rates by females, Black/African American students, and Hispanic/Latinx students. The findings highlight experiential ways in which computing programs can foster computing identity development, particularly for underrepresented and marginalized groups in computing. 

Informal STEM learning experiences (ISLEs), such as participating in science, computing, and engineering clubs and camps, have been associated with the development of youth’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics interests and career aspirations. However, research on ISLEs predominantly focuses on institutional settings such as museums and science centers, which are often discursively inaccessible to youth who identify with minoritized demographic groups. Using latent class analysis, we identify five general profiles (i.e., classes) of childhood participation in ISLEs from data reported by a nationally representative sample of college students (N= 15,579). Results show that childhood participation in specific typologies of ISLEs (i.e., setting and activity type) is associated with youth's disciplinary interests at the end of high school. Participation in outdoor activities that invite observation is more often reported by female respondents and is negatively associated with interest in computing and mathematics. Participation in indoor activities that invite object manipulation is more often reported by male respondents and is positively associated with interest in computing and engineering. However, frequent participation in multiple ISLEs is positively associated with interest in “science.” These results elucidate stereotypical discourses that reinforce the exclusion of minoritized students and expose critical areas needing reform.

 

Increasingly companies assess a computing candidate's capabilities using technical interviews (TIs). Yet students struggle to code on demand, and there is already an insufficient amount of computing graduates to meet industry needs. Therefore, it is important to understand students' perceptions of TIs, and other professional experiences (e.g., computing jobs). We surveyed 740 undergraduate computing students at three universities to examine their experiences with the hiring process, as well as the impact of professional and cultural experiences (e.g., familial support) on computing identity. We considered the interactions between these experiences and social identity for groups underrepresented in computing - women, Black/African American, and Hispanic/Latinx students. Among other findings, we observed that students that did not have positive experiences with TIs had a reduced computing identity, but that facing discrimination during technical interviews had the opposite effect. Social support may play a role. Having friends in computing bolsters computing identity for Hispanic/Latinx students, as does a supportive home environment for women. Also, freelance computing jobs increase computing identity for Black/African American students. Our findings are intended to raise awareness of the best way for educators to help diverse groups of students to succeed, and to inform them of the experiences that may influence students' engagement, resilience, and computing identity development. 

To address the longstanding problem of underrepresentation of women in physics, we developed two classroom interventions that encourage womens' future physics intentions. In testing these lessons in a larger study, we found variance in gains between student sub-populations across several teachers. This prompted the current mixed methods analysis to follow up on potential contextual factors leading to these differences, including social and economic setting of the school and student population characteristics, as well as teacher-level effects. We drew upon multiple sources of data collected from both teachers and students including teacher interviews, teacher and student open response surveys, and student artifacts from the lessons. In our preliminary analysis, we found that the broader social and economic environments did not appear to affect how students received the lessons; however, individual teacher implementation of the lessons did. 

Computer science (CS) has been identified as one of the fastest-growing professions, with demand for CS professionals far outpacing the supply of CS graduates. The necessity for a trained CS workforce has compelled industry and academia to evaluate strategies for broadening participation in CS. The current literature in CS education emphasizes the importance of social relationships and supports for individuals from underrepresented groups. Unfortunately, this literature has largely been limited to either the exploration of issues of women or that of underrepresented racial/ethnic groups. These limited views generalize characteristics of specific underrepresented groups without considering intersections between these groups. This quantitative study ( n = 3,206) addressed that shortcoming by leveraging inferential statistical methods to examine (i) the similarities and differences between the social CS-related experiences of Black women, Black men, and non-Black women in the United States; (ii) the relationship between these experiences and CS career choices; and (iii) the activities during which significant social experiences might occur. The results indicate that Black women's social experiences are often different from the experiences of both Black men and non-Black women. In particular, both Black men and non-Black women had more CS friends than Black women, whereas having these friends was more significant for the CS career choice for Black women. Introductions to CS in school, before college, were negatively related to career choice for all groups, whereas home support was positive for both Black women and men. This work suggests that considering intersectionality is important to understanding the needs of different individuals, as well as the importance of social supports for persistence in CS. 

The lack of diversity in computing fields in the United States is a known issue. Students enter the computing fields with the intention of graduating; however, a large number leave and do not persist after enrolling, due to discrimination and biases. This particularly concerns groups already underrepresented in computing fields, such as women, Black/African American students, and Hispanic/Latinx students. However, there are various experiences that can make students feel more included or excluded in the field. Some of these experiences include internships, undergraduate research, capstone courses, and projects, etc. Drawing on Astin's I-E-O model and applying a random forest algorithm, we measure the feature importance of 14 distinct experiences on 1650 students' feelings of inclusivity in the computing field. We observe that there are gender and racial differences in terms of the opinions of computing fields' inclusivity. For example, tutoring experience, job offers, and job experience are considered some of the most important factors for female's perceived inclusiveness of women. However, men perceived women's inclusivity differently, based on the experiences they engaged in. We also looked at the perceived inclusiveness of computing fields for ethnically and racially underrepresented groups, such as Hispanic/Latinx students. Understanding the effect of different experiences on students of both genders with different races and ethnicities on the perceived inclusion could assist the computing community to provide more cohesive experiences that benefits all students and helps them to feel more welcome. 

The number of female students in computing fields remain low despite the millions of dollars spent on research for attracting more female students. In order to attract more female students to these male dominated fields, we first have to understand in which educational years we are losing female students. For the purpose of this study, we utilized the data from [title blinded for anonymity] an NSF funded study. Approximately, 1650 students from three large public universities in Florida participated in this survey. The survey contained 39 questions around identity, field of study, as well as fields they wanted to pursue during middle school, high school, and college. The responses gathered through the Qualtrics survey system were analyzed in R by the research team. The research questions that guided this study were: (1) To what extent are female students interested in computing related fields at middle school, the beginning of high school, and the beginning of college? (2) How have these occupational pursuits changed over time? Do they differ for gender? The results of the study indicated a majority of female students that were attracted to the computing fields during middle school remained in those fields during high school and college years. However, there was no significant flow from other majors to the computing fields observed during the different educational years.